57 Tasting Notes

Yum, thanks Meowkattack! I am not a giant fan of red velvet (I wrote a whole post on my blog on that subject, haha) but I do like dessert teas, and I’ve been wanting to try this one for a while. Mm, sprinkles and chocolate chips! I didn’t try and eat a chip, though I was tempted. Kind of a murky, cloudy brew…the sprinkles bloat and dissolve in a fascinating and disgusting manner. Appetizing! Haha, okay, tasty! Really, really sweet. I wasn’t expecting so much maple flavor (it’s not something I ever associated with red velvet), but it’s still really delicious. Does it taste like cake? Not really. But I’ve stopped expecting tea to taste like cake, even if it is labeled so.

I can’t find a good enough picture of this that’s worth posting…so you’ll have to trust me when I say it’s really pretty and colorful. Full of reds, blues and greens!

I love visiting home and shopping with my mom. We bought some delicious tea. Both of us love coconut, and the smell of this was super enticing. The salesperson said her son mixed this with Irish Breakfast tea and iced it, which sounds like a really interesting combo. I’ll have to try it in the future. Anyway, this tea tastes as good as it smells (which is always a nice surprise) and brews up really sweet and creamy. Recommended for all coconut lovers!

I was fully prepared to not be that impressed with this. Every tea company has a caramel cream rooibos. And I made a cup of this once before, and I think I only half finished it. But I wanted something to sip in the evening, and it wasn’t offensive, so I brewed up a cup. Dry scent was pleasant, but nothing that special. I decided to try and eat one of the caramel bits and it was kind of gross and fake tasting. So, anyway, to stop being negative, this turned awesome when brewed. For like, 10 minutes. Do it long, it won’t hurt. Also, I feel like my water hasn’t been hot enough in general, cause I don’t remember all the caramelly pieces melting like they did this time. It brewed up really dark and amazing smelling. So much richer than the dry leaf. Add a little sugar and…man, that’s good stuff. Like I’m actually eating caramel. Get on this, people!

Having this one again after not drinking it for a while. Still awesome. Still smells like a bakery in the morning, breakfast pastries pulled straight from the oven. I really enjoy this with a decent amount of sugar in it. So many flavors going on in my mouth, I can’t really figure out what’s going on but I don’t care! And the love the pretty red thingies mixed in with the leaves.

This one was pretty alright for me, nothing really extraordinary. But I do love watching oolongs unfurl! It didn’t have as much of a rich, creaminess that I tend to associate with oolongs, and I didn’t get ANY hint of vanilla, but it did taste and smell very nuttytoastyroasty to me. I didn’t put any sugar in. I went outside in the cold and read Norse creation myths while drinking this. Kept me warm!

Caramel Matcha http://www.redleaftea.com/matcha-tea/caramel-matcha.html
First matcha!!! Ermahgerd guys, I was so excited to get this, but also kind of afraid? I didn’t want to waste a single bit of it. I’ve known about matcha for a while, and always been intrigued, but also intimidated by it. The closest thing I’ve probably had until now (excluding, y’know, normal green tea) was probably a green tea frappuccino. I have a bag of something called “cooking grade” matcha from Aiya Matcha in my room, which I use for (duh) cooking. I’ve never tried to drink it because I guess I assumed it wasn’t good enough for drinking.
Anyway, somehow there was an explosion of matcha talk on Steepster (probably due to Azzrian) and I became super intrigued. Flavored matcha? Yes please. Getting a promo coupon was the final step that pushed me to order. Yay!
So, here I was, with a 30 g bag of basic grade, distinctive caramel matcha. I was afraid to open the bag. But I did.
“Ohhhhhhh,” I moaned. The most beautiful smell in the world. So I set about preparing my beverage. I used ¼ tsp in a glass bowl, and poured 2-3 ounces of water on top of it. Okay, side note, and I’d love for you to help me out here. I have a Kamjove for boiling water, and while it appeared that my water was boiling in the kettle, when I poured it into a measuring cup and stuck a candy thermometer in it, it wouldn’t even reach 180F! Why? So I suspect that my water wasn’t hot enough, but I forged ahead anyway.
I got some bubbles when I whisked (I just had this rubbery whisk with me) but not an enormous amount of froth like I was hoping. Tips? The intoxicating smell also faded a bit when prepared. But it was delicious! Not bitter or weird at all. The matcha sugar at the bottom of the bowl was especially delicious, haha.
Not sated, I proceeded to make a cold matcha, putting some tea and sugar in a bottle with about 8ish ounces of water and shakeshakeshaking it. It was awesome! I think I liked it more than hot.

So there is my tale. I still feel like I have much to learn, but already, I want more matcha. If anyone has ANY sort of tips, I’d love to hear them!

This tea was good, but it wasn’t what I was expecting. I didn’t know that gooey butter cake was commonly lemon flavored (should have done my research! I’ve only had the vanilla-y kind). I was expecting something more like a combination between pancake breakfast and butterbeer, but it tasted more like a creamy lemon to me, similar to the lemon solstice I recently had. I need to try it a couple more times.

My school ran a butterbeer shake special a while back that was just a butterscotch shake with cayenne pepper in it for some reason. This is much better than that. But why did it take me so long to realize this smelled like rootbeer? Haha, I’m silly. I don’t really drink root beer unless it is accompanied by vanilla ice cream. I have a friend who is a root beer connoisseur and has tried like, 200 kinds. Anyway, I adore cream soda, and now I recognize that this tea reminds me of a cream soda/rootbeer hybrid! It’s very exciting how spot on it is…dunno how Frank does it. I wonder what it would be like iced…

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Hi! I’ve been drinking tea since I was a little kid, sipping on Lipton orange herbal tea with a spoonful of sugar when I was sick. When I went to England and experienced real, loose leaf tea, I was converted permanently. I prefer strong black teas, but I’m branching out into other flavors!